


i could be your crush

by advictorem



Series: make you mine [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, Humor, Mentions of Suicide, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking, Young Love, childhood crush, some sweet moments i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25889113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advictorem/pseuds/advictorem
Summary: This is a reference to the scene in my three-shot story "That Way." :“You trying to say I’m drunk?” Thalia questions jokingly. “You haven’t seen me drunk yet.”Reyna makes a face like she’s thinking, but it’s mischievous underneath. “Hm. What about after graduation, when you tried to crawl into your bedroom window?”“What?” Thalia laughs. “No, I didn’t.”Reyna smiles in a way that makes her suddenly unsure. “I distinctly remember being scared shitless when you fell into Jason’s room.”-This is the story of that night.
Relationships: Thalia Grace/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, Thalia Grace/Zoë Nightshade
Series: make you mine [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743622
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	i could be your crush

**Author's Note:**

> listen to "crush" by tessa violet for effect.
> 
> don't be shy, drop a review and let me know what you think ;)

It’s a fairly normal night over at her best friend’s house. Jason’s voice is hoarse from an hour and a half of reciting the entire script of Disney’s _Hercules_ , while she threw kernels of popcorn at his head whenever he missed a line. It’s just past midnight and they’re halfway through a scary teenage thriller when they hear an eerie screeching against the side of the house. It sounds like shifting metal, and they hear it even over the scream track of their movie.

Jason yelps, sending their bowl of popcorn spilling over his bedroom floor. Reyna startles, eyes frantically flying to his window. It’s dark and the Graces live on isolated, privately owned land. Their property line went on forever, and only close family stayed within miles of them. There are no streetlights, and the dim lights from the driveway do nothing to illuminate the window.

Reyna clambers to her feet, edging closer to the noise—it’s gone from a metallic screeching to a dull clanking, like a heavy weight is forcing the metal to skirt back and forth. Her mind flies to the irrational for a moment—is someone trying to break in to slice their throats because they didn’t make the cheer squad? _No, that’s the plot of the movie you’re watching_. Reyna’s nose wrinkles as she forces herself to think it over. That kind of stuff didn’t happen in their reality; it is far more likely that the intruder is only seeking to rob the Grace family of their valuables.

Jason moves next to her, his features resolved as they silently agree to investigate.

Mindlessly, Reyna grabs the only potential weapon nearest to them, which just happens to be Jason’s alarm clock. She yanks the plug from the wall, wrapping the end of the cord around her opposite hand to create a makeshift garrote wire.

The intruder is scrambling now, drawing closer to the window. A hand presses against the glass, causing Jason to shriek again. The intruder attempts to push up on the glass, to slide the window open, but they are far from coordinated and dramatically failing in their task. Reyna thinks the hand looks a bit familiar—the tattoos etched into nimble fingers—but she still braces herself for action.

Instead of bolting the lock on the window and sprinting across the house to wake his father, Jason curiously throws the window open, a breathless laugh escaping his scarred lips as he peers into the night. He reaches down, fists clenching around leather jacket lapels, and he grunts as he pulls his older sister into his room.

Thalia hits the ground, hard, unable to support her own weight without his assistance. Reyna’s nose wrinkles as she smells something disgustingly familiar. She eyes Thalia’s mumbling, twitching form, feeling a heavy weight settle onto her chest as she realizes that, for all intents and purposes, the older girl is _hammered_.

Reyna slowly goes about unwrapping the cord from her hand. Her eyes don’t leave the unconscious girl as she sets the clock back on Jason’s nightstand.

“Jeez,” Jason says, stressing his cropped blond hairs with a tremulous hand. He takes a steadying breath before he kicks his sister with a socked foot. “Lia, are you okay?”

When he doesn’t receive an immediate response, Jason’s frown knits his eyebrows together. This is hardly the first time Thalia’s come home like this, but it’s certainly the only time she’s been drunk enough to confuse Jason’s bedroom window for her own.

Jason always covers for her the next morning—she’s older than him and Reyna, but she’s still too young to legally drink, and her father would have her head if he knew about this.

He makes up some excuse or another about food poisoning or menstruation—though Reyna had to inform him that he should only use that reason once a month, lest he draw suspicion. Nevertheless, his parents always believe him, because he’s their golden boy. Reyna’s seen it firsthand.

It hurts a bit—a burning sensation in her chest—as she stares down at Thalia, drunken and broken.

Reyna never pries, but Jason tells her things sometimes—about what they went through with their biological mother, how she used to drink herself into a stupor almost every night and Thalia would protect him from her violent, drunken fits.

Reyna can’t help but wonder— _why_? Why is Thalia doing this to herself? She had known Thalia for years now—ever since her mother’s death led her to live with her dad in New York—so it seems so out-of-character for her. What could have shaken her so much that she gets intoxicated every weekend?

But again, Reyna never pries.

Reyna crouches low, ignoring the way her hands shake as she braces one of them on Thalia’s limp shoulder. She’s not as worried as Jason is, not really—she’s seen enough in her fifteen years to recognize symptoms of alcohol poisoning, and Thalia isn’t puking violently and she _did_ manage to climb up the house without tumbling to her death. Still, touching the other girl—even innocent brushes as she passes her on the stairs, flustered by Thalia’s teasing smirk as Reyna stumbles over awkward apologies—never fails to make Reyna’s nervous system short-circuit.

She uses the hand on her shoulder to flip Thalia onto her back, and she swallows to assuage her rapidly drying throat.

Jason snickers despite his trepidation, nudging her playfully as he shrinks to his knees beside her. “Try not to drool,” he advises. “She’s doing that enough as it is.”

He’s right; she really shouldn’t be so entranced. Thalia’s mouth is gaping, quiet hiccups causing her features to spasm on almost every heavy exhale. Her breath smells like peroxide, and she is sodden from the light rain, her normally spikey black hairs clinging despairingly to her forehead. Still, Reyna can’t deny the way her heart picks up at the sight of her, swelling with adoration that she normally tries to smother to death when Thalia’s conscious—her ego didn’t need it, and Reyna could hardly survive her teasing as it is.

Thalia’s phone starts to ring, shaking Reyna out of her introspection. Jason reaches for it first, but when he notices it’s vibrating in the front pocket of her ripped black jeans, he hesitates. Reyna knows what he’s going to ask, even before he turns his puppylike baby blues her way.

“You’re a girl,” he reasons. “And I really don’t want to reach into my sister’s pants.”

Jason mimes throwing up, and Reyna rolls her eyes at the dramatic display. She wants to argue that it’s weirder for _her_ to be the one to do it, but no intelligent excuse comes to her in time. The phone is ringing incessantly, and the person on the other end is clearly persistent so Reyna carefully reaches into Thalia’s pocket, feeling for the buzzing cell. Her fingers brush something solid that ignites the already present blush in her cheeks, but she doesn’t say anything about it as she pulls the phone from tight denim.

The screen displays a picture of an athletic girl with dark features, locking lips with a slightly smirking Thalia. Her name in Thalia’s phone is a purple flower emoji, and Reyna doesn’t have to think very hard to decipher who it is. Thalia’s girlfriend is calling. Reyna has seen her a couple times, mostly whenever they cross paths at the Grace house. She and Thalia spend most of their time locked in the latter’s room, so Reyna’s never actually carried on a conversation with her before.

“Who is it?” Jason asks. “It’s not Mom and Dad, right?”

Reyna shakes her head. She has to clear her throat before she speaks. She’s unable to pull her gaze away from the contact photo. She isn’t sure she likes the way it makes her feel.

“Her girlfriend,” Reyna says. “Zoë.”

“Oh,” Jason replies, his tone impossible—even for her—to decipher. She thinks he sounds almost remorseful, pitying, but for what? “Answer it. She’s probably worried. Maybe they had a fight.”

Reyna nods in agreement but she feels weird about it as she answers the call. Before she can speak, a rambling voice assaults her eardrums, at points slipping into a language that Reyna doesn’t understand but that she’s inclined to believe is Greek.

“— _vlákas!—_ Thalia Grace you have some nerve!” Zoë is clearly aggravated if the subsequent curses were anything to go by. “Where are you? I turned my back on you for one second! You can’t keep doing this every time we fight— _malaka_!—”

“Um,” Reyna interjects, causing the other line to immediately drop silent. “She’s right here.”

There’s a silent pause that raises Reyna’s hackles, and she practically feels the tension on the other end of the call. Then, Zoë’s voice sounds again, and it’s calculated but lethal.

“Who is this?” she inquires tersely. “And what are you doing with my _girlfriend’s_ phone?”

Reyna’s eyes widen in a way that signals Jason immediately.

He’s quick to voice himself and diffuse the situation. “Zoë!” he says brightly. “It’s Jason and Reyna. Thalia climbed into my bedroom by mistake.”

A sigh on the other end of the line—it sounds a bit relieved but mostly disappointed.

“Is she okay?” Zoë asks tiredly, some of her anger fading into concern as Reyna releases a breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“She’s…” Jason hesitates, looking his unconscious sister over. “Alive, I think. She’s just sleeping.”

Another sigh.

“I’m on the way,” Zoë says next, evenly. “Watch her until I get there. Wake her up, even if she fights you. She needs to drink a glass of water and take some medicine. You might want to force her to eat something, too. I don’t think she’s had anything.”

“Okay,” Jason says seriously, nodding even though she couldn’t see them. “How long until you get here?”

They hear some mumbling over the line, and it’s apparent Zoë is trading words with someone else.

“Thirty minutes,” Zoë says to them eventually. “I’ll call when I’m outside. Can you get her into bed?”

“Yes,” Reyna answers immediately. She looks to Jason. “We can carry her together.”

“Good,” Zoë says. Her voice is so tense, Reyna thinks she might burst into frustrated tears if she’s prodded enough. “I’m getting a ride with Phoebe. I’ll be there soon.”

She hangs up without any further ado.

Jason heaves a mighty breath, obviously overcome by the situation.

“She’s okay,” Reyna says surely but quietly, eyes watching dutifully as Thalia mutters something, causing her head to lop over to the side. “C’mon, let’s get her in bed.”

Thalia’s surprisingly light—even though she towers over both in height, she doesn’t have much weight to her bones. Reyna probably could have handled carrying her without Jason’s help, but they share the burden. He is supporting her legs as Reyna drags her by her armpits.

It takes some maneuvering, but Reyna is able to reach behind with one hand and open Thalia’s bedroom door, allowing them to hobble through it. She winces sympathetically when Thalia’s face bumps the doorknob, turning guilty eyes to Jason, who is trying for his sister’s sake not to laugh.

They navigate the messy room with surprising agility, only bumping Thalia one other time (this time against her dresser). Jason gingerly sets her feet on the ground, after Reyna shifts to support Thalia with sturdy arms around her, propping her upright so that he can peel back the bedsheets.

He steps back to help her recline his now semi-conscious sister on the bed. Jason wordlessly begins to remove Thalia’s muddy combat boots, although he grimaces at the dirt that attacks his hands. He sits them at the foot of her bed, neatly tucking the laces in.

“Let’s get her out of that jacket,” he suggests. Some of the color has returned to his face, and his eyes look a little less worried now that Thalia’s eyelids are beginning to flicker.

It takes the two of them a surprising amount of effort to complete the task, but Thalia’s arms are suddenly like lead, like she’s fighting them to keep her punk image intact. When the heavy leather jacket, slathered with metal punk rock pins, is finally off, they tuck her into the warm flannel sheets. She’s left in her favorite gray Green Day tee, which reeks of a strange combination of vanilla and smoke, and her tight black jeans.

As Jason sneaks down to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water and some painkillers, Reyna’s left alone. Alone, in Thalia’s room.

She takes a moment to look around and soak it all in. It’s rebelliously messy, but it has so much character that Reyna honest to god likes it. The walls—and she means every wall—are littered in band posters and polaroids of her rag-tag friends. The only real source of entertainment in the room is a small flatscreen, leveled on the wall opposite the bed. Thalia has old game systems that Reyna’s never played, collecting dust on the entertainment center centered below the TV. Thalia hasn’t played in some time, Reyna muses. She can’t recall the last time she heard the older girl’s boisterous rage-quitting from Jason’s room.

Thalia’s quiet murmurings startle her, and she spins around to see that electric blue eyes are studying her blearily. Reyna feels sheepish under the stare, but she does her best to hide it, bravely sidling up to the bed and sitting on the edge.

“Hey,” she says, more breathily than she means to. “You okay?”

Thalia’s silent confusion greets her, but she knows the older girl is mostly conscious, if not also deliriously drunk.

“Jason’s getting you some water,” she continues, flinching whenever Thalia’s callous fingers make contact with her face. Her hand feels cold against Reyna’s rapidly warming cheek. “T—Thalia—?”

“Are y—you mad at me?” Thalia’s slurring words take her aback.

Reyna’s dark eyebrows furrowed, but she smiles confusedly. “What? No, I’m not mad at you.”

Thalia sighs in relief. “S’rry—Zoë…mad—s’rry ‘mm really—” _hiccup!_ “—stuuuupid.”

She feels dumb as realization sets in. Thalia isn’t talking to Reyna, not really. Her words are meant for someone else—someone older, someone prettier. _Someone she’s dating_ , she mentally berates herself.

Reyna hates how Thalia somehow turns her into this weird, insecure, angsty teenager. This isn’t her. She’s better than this, stronger than this pointless little crush.

“You aren’t stupid,” she says softly, genuinely. Her hand reaches out before she can stop herself— _really,_ she shouldn’t have allowed herself to move in the first place—and she wipes the wet bangs out of Thalia’s eyes, freeing the freckles that are scattered across her forehead. Her entire face, really. “You’re just drunk.”

Thalia chuckles so hard she snorts—and she’s never heard sober Thalia make a noise like that, so it’s enough to make her laugh a little, too. Reyna bites her lip as their laughter dies down, her gaze sliding from mirthful blue eyes to a gleaming smile, and she thinks it’s sinful and completely unfair that Thalia’s drunken silly smile is just as devilish as always.

“You’re so pretty,” Thalia murmurs, and it’s so genuine that Reyna’s heart clenches painfully. _She’s not talking about you; she’s talking about Zoë._ “Feel li’e you don’t hear it ‘nough.”

“I—”

Reyna’s cheeks ignite, burning against Thalia’s surprisingly gentle fingers, and words fail her. She hates how nice the words make her feel, but she still dies a bit on the inside, knowing they’ll never be meant for her ears.

“Thank you,” Reyna mutters nonetheless, tucking an irate strand of hair behind her ear, as her eyes wander anywhere but to Thalia’s. She studies the cheesy Sex Pistols poster, framed over her headboard.

Her eyes are drawn back, however, unable to help her curiosity when Thalia noises her confusion with a short grunt. She still hasn’t removed her hand from Reyna’s hot cheek, her thumb stroking her high cheekbone as Thalia’s grin slowly melts. For the first time that night, her glittering, hazy irises click into focus.

It takes Reyna a moment to realize her hand hasn’t left Thalia’s rain-drenched locks. She blushes fiercely, awkwardly sliding her hand to rest on the pillow next to Thalia’s face.

Thalia seems conscious—or sober, rather—enough to recognize her now, and Reyna freezes under her stare. For a second, she almost feels something akin to fear clench her heart. Now that Thalia realizes she isn’t her girlfriend, would she be angry? Even worse, would she tease Reyna in the frustrating way that makes her feel so stupid for entertaining the thought of them?

When Thalia speaks, her voice isn’t angry, and it certainly isn’t teasing. Her words are raspy but soft, and they stop Reyna cold. 

“’Member when I roundhouse kicked J on the tramp’line, and we thought I broke his brain?”

Reyna swallows roughly because _yes, she does remember that_. She isn’t sure where Thalia is going with this. 

“Only time I’ve seen you scared. That—that’s what you look like right now.”

Reyna swallows again, hoping the other girl is too drunk to process her abrupt change in subject. “I wonder where Jason is. It shouldn’t take him this long to get you some water. I should go check on him.”

She tries to stand up from her comfortable perch on the mattress, but Thalia’s hand leaves her cheek in favor of gripping her wrist.

“ _Rey_ ,” Thalia slurs her name, but somehow it still sounds the way it always does pouring from her mouth. It stops Reyna’s retreat, the murmur of her name lulling her back to her seat. “I jus’ wanna tell you…”

She trails off, and Reyna waits a full five long, agonizing seconds before she clears her throat impatiently. Thalia’s brows furrow and her lips pucker a bit like she’s trying to solve an algebraic expression (which for Thalia, she knows, is a difficult thing to do even sober).

“You want to tell me what?” Reyna prompts, her tone patient even though she is far from it. Part of her feels bad about how intrigued she is by the words Thalia has yet to say. She hates the small, hopeful part of her that waits dutifully, waiting for Thalia to say something life-altering or to adamantly repeat that she _is_ pretty and that she had, in fact, meant to say the words to her.

“Jus’ don’t leave,” Thalia says gruffly, so anticlimactic that it’s almost funny but mostly frustrating. “Cos ‘m really drunk.”

“Okay,” Reyna responds, and the hope in her chest is mercifully squashed, her free hand finding Thalia’s over her wrist and closing around it. “I’ll stay.”

Thalia’s fingers fall slack from their grip, but for a brief moment—so short that Reyna is almost positive she hallucinated it—they curled around Reyna’s before Thalia pulled her hand away completely to rest it over the blanket.

The door creaks open and she turns to see Jason edging into the room with his hands full. A glass of water is balancing precariously among a bottle of painkillers, Thalia’s buzzing cellphone, an icepack, and an additional cozy throw blanket.

He’s a good brother, Reyna thinks. Jason’s the sweetest guy she knows.

“Sorry,” he says by way of explanation. “I couldn’t find the Tylenol at first.”

Thalia tries to prop herself up when she hears her ringtone sound, but she fails epically and settles for collapsing back onto the pillows. “Fuck.”

Reyna helps Jason arrange everything on the nightstand before she hears him acknowledge his drunk sister.

“Zoë’s on the way,” he tells her, and Reyna tries not to smirk at her resulting groan. “I’m under strict orders to hydrate you.”

“Is that—is she callin’?” Thalia manages, turning her gaze to the ceiling. “I can answer—give m-me my phone.”

Jason sighs like he disapproves, but he still swipes answer on the frantic phone, holding the receiver up to his sister’s ear.

“Baby,” Thalia murmurs.

Reyna turns her eyes away, to give the other girl privacy, she supposes. When she hears an unintelligible scolding on the other line, the weight on her chest feels more bearable.

“Zoë—Zo—‘m fine,” Thalia stumbles over her words, but her tone is firm as she attempts to reassure. Zoë must be more frazzled than she let on. “In bed.” A pause. “Yeah, ‘m drinkin’ water.”

Jason scoffs and, even though she’s a mess, Thalia still catches him in the derisive act and sends him one of her world-famous murderous glares to shut him up.

“Love you, too,” Thalia says next. “You outside?”

Reyna stands up from the bed, ignoring Thalia’s half-hearted grab for her wrist again. She doesn’t know if Jason notices, but she hopes he doesn’t. She begins to pace a little through the room, her socks ghosting across the hardwood floor.

“I’ll go let her in,” Reyna decides eventually.

She bustles out of the room before either of the Graces could protest. She takes the steps slowly, edging forward into the encroaching darkness. When she reaches the bottom step, which she recognizes based on feel alone, she reaches out for the hallway light switch she knows is there, on the wall to her right. She flicks it on, blinking as her eyes adjust to the fluorescent light. Reyna quietly walks to the front door, peering through the peephole to make sure it’s just Zoë on the other side.

The girl is prettier in person than she is in pictures, and Reyna doesn’t know why that does nothing but increase the pressure on her lungs. She’s shorter than Reyna, but her features are just as dark and unreadable. She considers their similarities, and she understands how a deliriously intoxicated Thalia had briefly mistaken them. Reyna takes a steadying breath before she unlatches the lock and opens the door, stepping aside to let the other girl step through.

Zoë smiles slightly and half-heartedly in greeting. She’s holding a bag that Reyna peers at curiously. “I had to stop by my house and grab my things. Has she really been drinking water?”

Reyna hesitates to answer, not wanting to sell Thalia out for lying, especially not when Zoë is already frustrated with her. “She has water.”

Not technically a lie.

Zoë snickers anyway, like Reyna has somehow told her the truth. “She’s so stubborn. It’s fine. I can talk her into it.”

They ascend the stairs together, though Reyna stays a step behind Zoë so as to not trip over her feet. “I’m sorry you guys had to see her like this,” Zoë says quietly, as they near the top of the stairs. “Thalia hasn’t been okay, not since…” She pauses like her silence should have clued Reyna in. “Anyway, normally I don’t let her get too out of control. But then we started fighting, and she disappeared. I don’t know how much she’s had to drink.”

She sounds like she feels awfully guilty, like she’s somehow responsible for Thalia’s ridiculousness.

“Thalia’s okay,” Reyna assures her. They stop in the hallway for a moment. “She was just sleeping earlier. She talked to me for a little bit.”

She left out the conversation on purpose—Zoë had been rearing to fight when she answered Thalia’s phone, so Reyna decides not to provide more details than necessary. She isn’t sure how jealous of a person Zoë is, but she doesn’t want to get Thalia into even more trouble over nothing—drunken, nonsensical rambling, and innocent touches that made Reyna’s stupid heart race.

As soon as they step into the room, Thalia closes her eyes, feigning sleep. Reyna holds back a laugh, but Zoë rolls her eyes as she makes her way over to the bed. The glass on her nightstand is now completely drained, so Reyna thinks that Thalia probably chugged it when she heard them coming up the stairs.

Jason is dabbing her forehead with a damp rag he likely got from her bathroom, like she’s a victim of the Spanish flu rather than an impending hangover from Hell.

Zoë takes over for him, patting his arm in thanks as he steps away. She sits on the edge of the bed, where Reyna once sat, wiping Thalia’s face of drool and managing to not look disgusted.

Reyna inhales deeply, hearing Zoë’s murmured questions.

“Did you come straight home?” she’s asking, and her words sound like they have an edge to them, like she’s not going to trust what comes out of Thalia’s mouth either way. Thalia nods. “Did you ride your bike?”

“No,” Thalia mutters, sounding more than a little exasperated. “Didn’t drive.”

“You walked,” Zoë says dully. “All the way from Artemis’?”

“Didn’t say that,” her girlfriend snorts. “Annabeth picked me up.”

Reyna remembers Annabeth. She sees her around school sometimes. It was always Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth, the notorious trio. They were three unlikely comrades, all coming from vastly different backgrounds but with one solid thing in common.

Annabeth is the smartest girl in school, but anyone with eyes could tell how unhappy she is at home. Thalia has a troubled past that not many are made privy to, and Reyna only is because of what little she’s scrounged from Jason’s brain. Luke…Reyna didn’t know much about him, only that Juno had warned her to always keep her hands close to her pockets around him. Despite everything, Reyna thought he was funny, and it was apparent how much he cared about Thalia and Annabeth.

The three of them have been inseparable, since as long as Thalia has lived in New York. That is, up until Luke’s incident.

Zoë’s silence suddenly makes sense to her now. Thalia _hasn’t_ been okay, for a long time. Reyna hates herself for not making the connection. Jason knew, Zoë knew. Thalia’s been suffering in drunken silence, and Reyna just romanticizes her and hangs onto a childhood crush that will never turn into anything. She feels selfish.

“She didn’t call me,” Zoë accuses. “Annabeth always calls me.”

“Ugh,” Thalia groans lowly, though she’s leaning into her girlfriend’s comforting touch. “Tole her notta call you. ‘Cos you’re mad.”

“I was worried about you,” Zoë says, her tone carrying a detectable vehemence. She doesn’t sound like she’s trying to pick a fight—more like she is adamant to get her perspective across to a delirious Thalia. “I let you do this shit to yourself every night, the least you can do is call me, so I know you’re safe.”

“We should go,” Jason mouths to Reyna, nudging his head to the door.

Reyna doesn’t want to, wanting for some reason to be made privy to this intimate side to their relationship, but she relents, catching Thalia’s eye over her shoulder before she allows herself to be ushered from the room.

“Thank you,” Jason whispers to her. She looks at him in confusion, prompting him to clarify. “For helping with Thalia. I know it’s, like, really weird to ask.”

Reyna shakes her head. “You’re my best friend,” she says. “I’d do anything for you.” _And for Thalia._ She bites her lip.

Jason smiles sadly. “Still. Thanks.”

She’s scared to ask it, but she feels like she has to. “How long has it been going on?” He pales, and she almost feels bad for pressing but she does it anyway. “I mean, I know I’ve seen her drunk a lot lately, but—”

“September,” he interrupts hoarsely. “Luke killed himself in September.”

“Oh,” Reyna breathes. “God. _Eight months_?”

Jason nods shakily, opening the door for her as they enter his bedroom.

“Do your parents know?”

“Of course not,” Jason says, shaking his head ruefully. “Even if I didn’t cover for her every time, they still wouldn’t notice.”

Reyna’s heart hurts—worse than it did when Thalia complimented her, mistaking her for Zoë, more than it did when she saw the picture of them kissing. She feels overcome with emotions she doesn’t fully understand.

“Maybe you should tell them. She needs help,” Reyna says strongly, unable to keep the low tone he is. “Your parents need to set her up with a therapist. Somebody.”

“Thalia wouldn’t go,” Jason argues surely. “I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but she hides it from me. She keeps telling me she’s fine. If she won’t tell her own brother how she’s feeling, what makes you think she’d tell a therapist?” He sighs. “She...just needs time.”

Reyna lowers her head, wanting to argue that it might be much easier for Thalia to confide in a stranger than her younger brother, who she always lived to protect, even from herself.

She sighs, flopping onto his unmade bed. She rests on her stomach, cradling her chin in her hands as she waits for Jason to set up a different movie. Neither of them feels like watching the rest of the cheesy slasher film, and she’s thankful he’s picked up on that.

“Do you think she’s talked to Zoë?” Reyna asks curiously, letting some of the previous tension melt from her voice. “I mean, she might be more comfortable because she’s her girlfriend.”

“No,” Jason answers after a bit of thought. “Zoë never liked Luke. He’s a sore topic for them as it is. That’s probably why Zoë lets her do this to herself. She probably thinks Thalia can drink him out of her system.”

“That’s messed up,” Reyna says with a bit of heat, before she can stop herself. She doesn’t care if Zoë hears her from Thalia’s room. She thinks it’s ridiculous that Zoë isn’t doing better and is too petty to provide an ear to her mourning girlfriend. “Right?”

Jason shrugs. “I guess it’s a little messed up, but things between them are weird anyway. Zoë has her reasons, and I think Thalia respects that.” He shakes his head dejectedly, inserting another disc into the movie player. “Thalia’s always been like that. She ignores her own pain for the sake of others. It’s kind of annoying.”

Reyna nods. Although she wants to be angry at Thalia for thinking that way—that her pain is trivial compared to others, that she isn’t worth someone listening to, that she isn’t deserving of help—she can’t help but think her hero complex is endearing. On the outside, Thalia looks like she would rob people at knifepoint; on the inside, she’s just as sweet and self-sacrificing as Jason is.

Reyna wishes she didn’t hide that part of herself from everyone, but part of her is glad that she reserves it for the people that mean something to her. It makes Reyna happy that she’s counted among the few. She’s been on the receiving end of Thalia’s kindness more often than not, even if the older girl did spend a lot of time teasing her and poking fun. Thalia always took her side when she and Jason were bickering, even though Reyna didn’t usually return the favor. She made sure to bring Reyna something, too, every time she brought Jason lunch, and she remembers what Reyna likes and what she doesn’t like. She’s never missed one of Jason’s games, and she always brings him to Reyna’s—smiling at her from the stands, discreetly smoking a joint with Travis and Connor Stoll on the top bleacher.

 _Stop torturing yourself,_ she scolds. _You’re just a dorky kid to her, and you always will be._

“I picked Aladdin,” Jason murmurs, settling onto the bed next to her, striking the same position.

It’s her favorite, so she smiles at the sentiment, but it’s not enough to erase the situation from her mind. It hangs over her like a dark cloud now, with dramatic streaks of lightning and everything.

Reyna sighs, leaning her head on Jason’s shoulder, willing her dramatic teenage heart to chill out as colorful scenes illuminate the screen across from them. Eventually, as Aladdin begins to sing and dance through the streets of Agrabah, it becomes easier to submerse herself in the story and ignore the hollow, painfilled thudding of her heart.


End file.
